Author Andrew Banfield spent years searching for the Yeti (snowman) along with his skeptical friend and political analyst Richard Horsey. A pair of enthusiasts traveled to India, Myanmar, Nepal and Bhutan, listening to local people’s stories about the mythical creature. They filmed the TV series “Yeti”, which tells about their adventures.

It ended with an exciting moment in June. An anonymous source provided travelers with the mysterious hair. They were believed to belong to Yeti. The hair was approximately 15 cm long. Banfield cut them in half and sent one piece to Charlotte Lindquist, an evolutionary biologist at the University at Buffalo in New York. They found a match with the DNA of Altai horses, a mountain breed from Asia.

In the bonus episode aired at the end of October, the results of the DNA test were revealed. It turned out that the hair belonged to a horse.

After three years of searching, the result was “inconclusive”, Benfield said. “The horse was as boring an option as possible,” the author said. However, according to the travelers, DNA analysis does not refute the series or the stories of the people they talked to.

Stories of a monkey-like creature roaming the Himalayas date back centuries. People’s interest in the Yeti, or snowman, increased in the early 1950s when British mountaineer Eric Shipton returned from Everest with photographs of giant footprints. Further research by Westerners found no scientific evidence for the existence of this creature.

In 2019, Banfield decided to hear Yeti stories firsthand and invited Horsey, who has a PhD in cognitive psychology, to join him. Source